Simeon Jocelyn
American abolitionist (1799–1879)
Simeon Smith Jocelyn (1799 – 1879) was an American minister, abolitionist, engraver, and activist known for promoting educational opportunities and civil and political rights for African Americans in New Haven, Connecticut, during the 19th century. He is also known for his attempt to establish the United States' first college for African Americans in New Haven, and for his role in the Amistad affair.
Abolitionism
Jocelyn served as the first pastor of the Black congregation at the new Temple Street Church in New Haven, Connecticut. A former student at Yale College, Jocelyn was also the leading advocate for the establishment of an African-American college in New Haven. At the time there was no such college in the country, or anywhere else in the English-speaking world. Save a few exceptional cases, no college accepted African Americans as students. A few years later, the short-lived Oneida Institute and the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, predecessor of Oberlin College, decided to accept African Americans. The short-lived New-York Central College was the first to accept, from its opening day, both African Americans and women.
New Haven excitement
Working closely with both William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan, he introduced his plan to create an African-American college to the New Haven community on September 7, 1831. Tappan offered a subvention of $1,000, if the local whites would raise $9,000 and the Blacks $10,000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Simeon Jocelyn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.